When you need to find a hotel in China, you must be aware of a few peculiarities related to online booking, local laws, and attitudes towards accommodation for foreign tourists.
Popular booking services that you are used to using when traveling to other countries may offer few hotels in China and overpriced accommodations. For example, Airbnb has stopped working in the Chinese tourist accommodation market altogether.
Nevertheless, booking a hotel in China for a foreigner is not difficult. You only need to take into account the Chinese specifics.
Can foreigners stay in all hotels in China?
What is the best website to use to book a hotel in China?
What features should I consider when choosing a hotel in China?
How to book a hotel for a visa to China?
How to pay for accommodation in a Chinese hotel?
Which hotels in China can foreigners book?
The topic of hotel booking in China by foreigners is confusing and ambiguous. Some time ago, some hotels in China served only local residents, and special accreditation was required to accommodate foreign tourists. When this accreditation was canceled, many hotel owners did not even know about it, as they had no interest in accommodating foreign guests. They had enough local clientele. In the spring of 2024, after complaints from foreign travelers, the Chinese authorities announced that all hotels in China must accept foreigners.
So, can a foreigner book a room in any Chinese hotel?
No. Several hotels focus only on local tourists and shy away from accepting guests from other countries.
One reason for this behavior is the lack of technical ability to transfer passport data of foreign guests for registration with the police. According to Chinese law, a foreigner must register at the local police station within 24 hours of arrival in the country. Hotel management is obligated to register tourists staying in hotels. Hoteliers are unable or unwilling to fulfill this duty. Another reason hotels are not happy to see foreigners is that hotel staff do not know languages other than Chinese.
How can I avoid booking a hotel that may deny accommodation to a foreigner?
If you choose one of the well-known international hotel chains, such as Hilton, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Marriot, Ibis, etc., you are guaranteed not to have any problems with accommodation.
It will not be difficult to stay in hotels that have a high rating in the booking systems and are located in major cities such as, for example, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou.
Almost all of the hotels that can be found on Trip.com website, which is good for booking accommodation in China, accept foreigners.
To be sure, it is very easy to find out through this site whether the hotel you like is available to accommodate foreign travelers. On the page where the hotel rooms you like are posted, open the Policies tab. There is a line Guest Accepted.
What is the Best Site to Book Hotels in China?
The easiest way to find out which site is the best for booking hotels in China is to compare several sites. We will compare the most popular booking systems Trip.com, Booking.com, Agoda.com in terms of the number of accommodations in China, prices, and the ability to cancel a reservation if plans change.
For example, let’s look at the Chinese capital Beijing.
Number of accommodations.
The best result for this indicator is Trip.com, where we found 11 576 hotels, hostels, apartments, and other types of accommodation for tourists.
Website Trip.com
Booking.com site, which is very good for booking accommodation in European countries, can offer to book only 226 hotels in Beijing.
Website Bookin.com
Сайт Agoda.com is one of the leaders in booking accommodation in Asia. This online service offers 8 955 hotels in Beijing-significantly more than Booking.com but less than Trip.com.
Website Agoda.com
Cost of accommodation.
To compare accommodation costs, let’s check the price for 3 nights at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Beijing, which can be booked on all three sites.
On Trip.com, this hotel is available for booking for $281, including taxes and fees.
Booking.com lists the price at $242 + $40 taxes and fees, meaning the full price is $282.
Agoda.com lists the price for 1 night without taxes and fees
During the booking process, we can see the full price of the hotel room. It is $281.
If you check the prices of other hotels, you will get a similar result. The prices on all three sites are about the same.
Free сancellation
The ability to cancel your reservation without losing money is a very important option that can come in handy if the timing of your trip to China has changed or your trip has to be canceled altogether.
The number of hotels in Beijing where free cancellation is available on the sites we compared is as follows.
— Trip.com — 4 798 hotels;
— Booking.com — 210 hotels;
— Agoda.com — 491 hotels.
As you can see, the best site for booking hotels in China is Trip.com. There is an explanation for this. Although incorporated in Singapore, Trip.com is part of China’s Trip.com Group and is one of the world’s four largest online travel companies (along with Expedia Group, Booking Holdings and Tripadvisor).
How to Book Accommodation on Trip.com?
Booking accommodation on Trip.com is intuitive and similar to other popular booking systems. However, we recommend that you pay attention to a few useful features of Trip.com.
By default, the accommodation price is shown for one night without taxes and fees. However, there is an option to show prices for the entire period of your stay, including taxes and fees. This option will inform you about the full cost of booking a hotel.
Reviews from travelers who have stayed at the hotel before are always helpful. On Trip.com, many reviews include photos of the rooms taken by hotel guests. Such photos give more reliable information about how the room looks. It’s no secret that photos provided by the hotels themselves may embellish reality, or they were taken a long time ago, and the look of the room has changed a lot since then.
Example of a hotel review in Shanghai
Pay attention to how the hotel bathroom looks. In many hotels in China, it is customary to separate the shower and toilet from the room with a glass partition. In cheap accommodation, there may not even be a partition. Here, for example, is a photo of a room called the Business Queen Room.
Hotel bathroom in China
A good portion of the hotels you’ll find on Trip.com can be booked not only with online payment but you can pay when you check-in. There are options where you don’t need a credit card to book. Unfortunately, these hotels can’t be found using filters, but you can see them by examining the information about the accommodation you like.
Hotel in China without prepayment
On Trip.com, you can see the location of any hotel on a map. Be sure to take advantage of this feature. With the help of the map, you will know if there are bus stops, subway stations, stores, restaurants, and other useful facilities nearby. Also, you will understand the location of the accommodations and attractions, as well as other places you plan to visit.
Apart from booking hotels, you can buy airplane and train tickets and book transfers on Trip.com.
What Features Do Hotels in China Have?
When choosing a hotel in any country, we usually consider its location, room size, accommodation cost, breakfast availability, and many other factors. However, hotels in China have their own specifics, which you should also know. We have already told you about one peculiarity — not all Chinese hotels want to accept foreign guests. But there are other peculiarities.
Chinese language.
You are planning a trip to China, and people in China speak in Chinese. Take it as a given: they speak Chinese in China. As for knowing English or any other foreign language, it’s rare. Even in hotels in major cities, the staff probably won’t speak English. Yes, Chinese people learn English in school. But think back to your own schooling. Were you and your classmates good at learning foreign languages? Also, Chinese speakers of English have a very strong accent, and you will probably have difficulty understanding them. And the worst thing is to talk to a Chinese person who is sure he speaks English well. He will speak fast, and because of his accent and his speed of pronunciation, you won’t understand anything at all.
By the way, when you speak English to Chinese people, speak slowly and in simple phrases. If, for example, the shower in your hotel room is leaking, you do not need to describe to the staff in great detail how exactly it is leaking. Just say that you have a problem with the shower. They will send a plumber who, of course, does not speak English at all, but he will see the problem for himself. As the Chinese say, 百聞不如一見 — a picture is worth a thousand words.
So how do you communicate with the hotel staff if they don’t understand English? Google Translate and sign language 🙂
Check-in and Check-out.
Some features of checking in at a Chinese hotel are that your documents will be copied to provide information to the police, and you will almost certainly be asked to pay a deposit. The deposit can usually be made in cash or by credit card. The Chinese like cash. You may find it more convenient to deposit cash, as it will be refunded immediately upon check-out, while the money on your card will take 2 weeks or longer to be returned.
When checking out of the hotel, keep in mind that it may take you up to 20-30 minutes to check out. First, the staff at many hotels don’t like to be rushed. Secondly, the safety of all things in the room after your stay is necessarily checked, and this takes time.
Hotel Room.
One of the problems with both cheap and expensive hotels in China is the lack of
cleanliness in the rooms. You can avoid staying in a dirty room by scrutinizing hotel reviews.
Another feature often found in cheap hotels is windowless rooms. Sometimes, the photo of the room shows a window covered with curtains, but, in fact, there is no window. Read the room description on the booking site carefully.
Room without window
As a rule, rooms in Chinese hotels have bottles of free water. However, they may also have drinks next to them that you will have to pay for. Paid drinks differ from free drinks because they have price tags.
Blocking websites.
Wi-Fi access is available in almost all hotels in China, but you will not be able to use all the usual online services. Many websites, social networks and messengers are blocked in China.
For example, you will not have access to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google and Yahoo. You won’t be able to use Gmail email.
How to bypass the blockages? Install a VPN on your phone and laptop. But you need to install the VPN before arriving in China because you won’t be able to download the app on the spot — Google Play and App Store are also blocked in China.
How to book a hotel for China visa?
When applying for a visa to China, you must provide hotel reservations for the entire route of your stay in the country. This requirement may not be very convenient if you plan to visit several places in China. Your plans may change both before and during your trip. You may really like one city and want to stay longer than you initially planned. On the contrary, you may not find another interesting and want to shorten your stay there.
To have more flexibility and freedom of choice when traveling and still meet the requirement to pre-book all hotels for your visa, you should book accommodation in China with a free cancellation option. Trip.com has such an option. For example, in Shanghai, out of the 8,474 hotels available for booking, free cancellation is available for 6,952 hotels. To see only accommodations with free cancellation, use the appropriate filter.
Are you concerned that it will take a long time to get your money back to your credit card when you cancel your reservation? Trip.com says that refunds are issued within 1 business day. However, the refund length depends on the booking service and your bank, so sometimes the money is refunded for a few days or even a few weeks.
There is a way to completely eliminate the risk of waiting a long time for a refund. Many hotels offer options for booking with payment at the hotel and even booking without using a credit card.
How to pay for hotels in China?
You can pay for hotels booked in China in various ways: online with credit cards and directly at the hotel with cards and cash. If you book your accommodation on Trip.com with online payment, you can use VISA, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal and other payment methods.
If you plan to pay at the hotel, see the information about payment methods on the page of the selected hotel. VISA, MasterCard and UnionPay are generally accepted in China. Chinese authorities require hotels with a rating of 3 stars or higher to provide international credit card payment options for foreign travelers. However, cheap accommodation may only accept cash and Chinese credit cards.
China hotels FAQ’s
Can I book accommodation in China using Airbnb?
— No. Airbnb has suspended operations in China due to problems during the coronavirus pandemic, the reluctance of hosts to register guests with the police, and other difficulties in doing business.
Which website is best for booking hostels in China?
— It’s best to book on Trip.com or Agoda.com. On these sites, you can find 50-100 hostels in major Chinese cities. Hostelworld has less than 10 offers. Hostels are not the most popular type of tourist accommodation in China.
How many days before traveling should I book accommodation in China?
— Like everywhere else: the earlier the better. If you book early, you will have more choice, there will be free places in the most popular hotels. Of course, you must consider the season in resort areas and the time of year in cities like Beijing. If you are planning a trip during a period when there are few tourists, you can book good accommodation 5-7 days before the start of the trip.
Can you drink tap water in Chinese hotels?
— No, tap water in China is not suitable for drinking. The Chinese sometimes drink this water after boiling it, but it is better not to risk it and drink only bottled water.
Do hotels have non-smoking rooms?
— Yes, almost all hotels have such rooms. However, there is no guarantee that a non-smoking room will not smell of tobacco since not all Chinese people comply with the smoking ban. If you are staying in a good hotel, you can ask to change rooms if they smell of tobacco.
What do they serve for breakfast in Chinese hotels?
— Good hotels serve both local and European cuisine for breakfast. The only thing they may not have is coffee, which is not very popular in China.
How much do the cheapest hotels cost in China?
— The minimum price in Beijing, Shanghai and other large cities is $ 5 per night. Of course, the quality of the accommodation will correspond to its cost.
What kind of sockets are installed in Chinese hotels?
— Most hotels use universal sockets that accept any plug. The voltage is usually 220 volts, but sometimes 110 volts are used.
Further Reading: How to book a hotel in Russia?
